


In The Middle

by papofglencoe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Bullying, Comic-Con, Cosplay, F/M, Friends to Lovers, POV Peeta Mellark, Slut Shaming, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:41:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7543666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papofglencoe/pseuds/papofglencoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only mercy in all of this was that she hadn’t been outside to see it. Or to hear it. It was bad enough she was seeing him bleed, could see the tracks his tears had carved through his caked and clotted face paint. </p><p>He was just thankful she didn’t know she was the reason why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Middle

**Author's Note:**

> Based on The DJ Snake video for "The Middle" 
> 
> www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=mOKqNxN4jWM

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/31648550@N03/30168399823/in/dateposted-public/)

Shards of glass were embedded in his palm, tiny fragments so small he couldn’t see them unless he held his hand up to the light to watch them sparkle. They stung sharply, a hundred bloodless gashes, but they didn’t sting as badly as his injured pride. That hurt so much worse, but unlike the gash on his leg, exposed by the tear in his cargo pants, or the scrape below his blackened eye, at least he could hide that away behind a mask.

“Cato is such an asshole,” she hissed at Peeta’s back, following him as he limped through the door and into the bathroom. She sounded livid— _was_ livid, he knew— each one of the syllables out of her mouth dripping and oozing with a need for revenge. “I should knock him onto the asphalt and—”

“Katniss, please can we not,” he sighed, cutting her off, unable to hear about how his best friend— a girl who couldn’t tip the scale at a hundred pounds soaking wet— wanted to knock the shit out of the goliath who’d just walloped his ass. Who had beaten him up outside a comic convention. While he was dressed as a superhero that Katniss had dubbed “Amazing Marv” because the shabby homemade costume was so motley it looked, she said, like Stan Lee’s brain had exploded all over his clothes. And, to top it all off, he’d been carrying a lacrosse stick as his “weapon,” but he hadn’t even tried to use it to fight back. He’d dropped it onto the ground at the very first punch.

He felt her cool gray eyes on him as he sank onto the edge of the bathtub, his shoulders slumped in defeat, but he kept his eyes locked on the square foot of ground directly in front of his feet. Some superhero he’d make, curled on the ground in the fetal position, gasping every time Cato’s shoe had connected with his ribs. He’d gnashed his teeth and taken the beating, trying and failing not to cry at the unfairness of it. No, there had been nothing heroic in that, he thought.

He felt like he’d been hit by a fucking car, plowed into by a moving vehicle that had been screaming down a busy highway. His bones felt jarred loose, his muscles knotted into ropes. Every inch of him ached and roared and burned, and it only hurt worse when he looked at her.

The only mercy in all of this was that she hadn’t been outside to see it. Or to hear it. It was bad enough she was seeing him bleed, could see the tracks his tears had carved through his caked and clotted face paint. He was just thankful she didn’t know she was the reason why.

Katniss threw her bow and quiver onto the floor, the props noisily clattering as they landed on the tile. She swung open the mirror above the vanity, her nimble fingers impatiently pushing aside bottles and toiletries to pull out antiseptic and gauze and scissors.

“We gotta keep it down,” Peeta reminded her in a quiet voice, not wanting his dad to wake up and see the carnage. Mr. Mellark wouldn’t care that Katniss was there; she was a permanent fixture at their house, and he didn’t even bother to ask questions when they fell asleep cuddled up on the couch or, with their limbs entwined, together on Peeta’s bed. He couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit bitter that his dad was so completely unworried about something happening between Katniss and him.

He really wanted something to happen.

But fat fucking chance of that now. When he thought about it— how she must see him— he wanted to throw up. The only thing stopping him was knowing how badly his ribs would ache if he did.

She’d never go for someone like him when she could be with someone like Gale Hawthorne. If there’s one thing Peeta knew for certain, it was that Gale would have pulverized Cato. The minute the word “slut” fell from Cato’s lips, Gale’s fist would have connected squarely with Cato’s jaw, and he wouldn’t have stopped until Cato was on the ground screaming “please” over and over, howling for clemency. Maybe he wouldn’t have stopped, even then.

Peeta knew he could fight, if it came down to it. He just didn’t want to— was terrified of the monster that anger might make out of him. A monster like _she_ had been. So, when words had failed and Cato’s fist came flying at his eye, Peeta fell to the ground and stayed there.

No wonder Katniss had gone out with Gale. Had, according to Cato, slept with him, too, on the first date (or, to be more accurate, had “sucked him off and then fucked him”). Gale would have stood his ground, would have raged for Katniss when words weren’t enough, _because_ they weren’t enough. There was no competition between them; it was always going to be Gale, or some guy like him, and Peeta had to find a way to be content with loving her forever, just as they were. At some point he’d have to try to find a girl, would have to press his lips to hers and muster the strength not to think about how Katniss’ lips might have tasted instead, but there didn’t seem a point in trying when he knew that no one else could ever come close to her.

“Alright, let’s take a look at you then,” Katniss said with a sigh, reaching her hand out to tip his chin upward toward the light. She winced as she turned his head, and he grimaced back, his neck protesting at the movement. Peeta closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to see the way she was looking at him, with so much pity and sadness. It made him want to kiss her in some futile hope that he could kiss the sadness away— if only it would work that way.

She’d touched him a million times since they were kids— affectionate, platonic caresses that amounted to nothing— but right now, the way her fingers skated across his jaw and then his cheeks, assessing every pore for damage, it felt like something else. The pleasure commingled with the pain, and it made his heart implode from so much useless desire. He wanted her hands to linger, to stay.

His eyes were still closed when he felt her hands brush through his hair. She was probably checking his scalp for fractures, his forehead for scrapes, but with his eyes closed he imagined she was exploring him like this as he rubbed against her, holding her in his arms. It was so intimate, this way. With his eyes closed he could imagine that Katniss touching him meant something more than just comfort and concern.

Her hands wrapped around to the back of his head, unfastening the buckle holding up his Kato mask. It was either the sound of it landing in the porcelain tub or her gasp that caused his eyes to snap open.

Peeta looked up at her, his blue eyes meeting the gray of hers, and he thought that together they’d make a stormy sky. He’d like to paint that sometime, the color of her eyes and his, mixed up and swirled together in one restless, moving mass.

“What did he do to you? I could kill him,” she groaned, her eyes brimming with tears. Her thumb brushed lightly over the dark purple bruise beneath his eye, and even though the pressure was agonizing, he wanted to beg her never to stop.

“That’s a nice thought, but maybe you could do me a favor and finish me off instead, sweetheart?” He smiled weakly, trying not to let her see how badly it hurt because what hurt worse was the thought of Katniss crying.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Mellark. You’re not going to die, okay? Not on my watch.” She gave a rueful smile and reached behind her, grabbing the hand towel from the sink and running it under the tap to dampen it. “You must not be feeling so bad if you still have the energy to be a jackass. So let’s get you cleaned up.”

She started wiping off his face, the red and black paint smearing onto the white fabric of the towel, ruining it. Neither of them seemed to notice or care. Katniss leaned over Peeta, holding his head steady in one hand while dragging the towel gingerly along his face. Her braid hung over her shoulder, the loose strands at the end tickling Peeta’s nose. She was frowning in concentration and biting her lip, and at this distance, so distractingly close, Peeta wanted to reach up and brush his thumb along her lip to free it. He focused instead on breathing deeply, calmly, so that she wouldn’t notice when she pushed too hard on a cut or scrape. When he inhaled he could smell her soap— pistachio, she’d once told him, but to him it smelled more like a meadow. He didn’t care what it smelled like, to be honest. He loved it all the same. It smelled like her, and that was home.

She pulled away to look at his face once she’d scrubbed off the paint, scanning every inch to compile a list of grievances. He could tell that she thought she’d put on a neutral expression for him, but the two frown lines at the top of her nose betrayed her.

He swallowed thickly, nervous at her scrutiny and also at the thought of what he’d see when he worked up the nerve to look in the mirror. “Pretty awful, huh?”

She shrugged unconvincingly. “So-so.”

Katniss was always a lousy actress, and he could tell by her reaction that he wasn’t going to like what the mirror would tell him. He eased himself up, and she moved aside in the narrow bathroom to make room for him by the vanity. They stood shoulder to shoulder, the warmth of her body seeping into his.

 _Well, fuck_.

Peeta exhaled a shaky breath, taking in the sight before him. His left eye was swollen and puffy, and he knew that, even with an ice pack, there was a good chance it wouldn’t open in the morning. His cheeks were abraded and scraped from the force of hitting the rough sidewalk, the skin of his face peppered in bruises. He looked like he’d gone through hell, and that was just his _face_.

His eyes flitted over to take in Katniss’ reflection in the mirror, to soak in the sight of her smooth, flawless, olive skin and her sable hair. Standing there next to him, in her Mockingjay costume, she looked like the spirit of a revolution, powerful and beautiful and mysterious.

Her eyes met his. “So… you’ve looked better,” she said, trying to sound diplomatic even though Katniss had never been and would never be known for her diplomacy.

He smirked because it was easier than smiling. “That’s not even remotely nice.”

“Well,” she quipped, squeezing his forearm affectionately, “You were always the nice one.”

He hoped she didn’t notice how his arm hair stood on end at her touch or how his heart hammered at the words implying they were in any way a pair; he consoled himself by thinking that she hadn’t noticed yet, five-some odd years after he’d realized that the way he felt about her went well beyond friendship. Through all the bleeding and bruising, he doubted she’d notice now. He tore his gaze from hers and looked at his palm instead, making himself consider what he should do about cleaning it.

“You’ve got to keep this clean, otherwise it could get infected,” she said, grabbing his hand and holding it close to scrutinize the cuts. Her breath fanned across his palm in short gusts, the air tickling every place where the shards were buried. “The glass is too small for tweezers, so I think it’ll just have to work itself out.”

“Yeah,” Peeta sighed, not really talking about the glass because it was suddenly the last thing on his mind, “I guess it will.” He watched her as she held his hand over the sink and poured the peroxide over it, the liquid fizzing and bubbling as it worked its way under his skin. His fingers curled slightly over hers, moving of their own accord, holding onto her.

She dabbed his hand dry with gauze and then wrapped it methodically, slowly. “There.” She gave a tight smile, avoiding his eyes. “Just like new.”

Katniss squeezed his hand before dropping it and nodding toward his leg. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “We should take care of that next.” For some reason, a flush had crept onto her face, some expression Peeta had never seen before and didn’t entirely understand, something like embarrassment.

“Naw, I got it,” he said. He supposed she was sick of playing nurse to him when he was perfectly capable of dressing his own wounds. And she probably needed a break from his face— lord knows he did after about ten seconds of looking at it. “But thanks. You can head downstairs if you want, and after I clean up I’ll drive you home.”

“Home?” She looked up at him incredulously. “Why would I go back there? I’m staying with you.”

He chuckled, touched by the sweetness of the thought. “It’s not like I’m seriously injured… it’s just a few scrapes and bruises. You don’t need to keep bedside vigil over me or anything.”

She gave him one of her world famous scowls, one of his favorite expressions because, on Katniss, it was less about anger and more about loyalty. “I know I don’t _need_ to stay. I _want_ to.”

This was a battle he desperately wanted to lose because he knew with certainty that the only way he was going to sleep tonight was if Katniss was lying on his chest. He gingerly nudged the flesh beneath his eye, feeling selfish for wanting that— especially if she was someone else’s girlfriend now. “Yeah, but I’d say there’s little to no chance of me going to school tomorrow like this. And besides, you only have your costume to wear.” These were really the only arguments he had left at his disposal, aside from all the things he was too cowardly to say to her.

“So,” she shrugged, stubborn as ever. “I’ll play hookie with you then. And I can just borrow something of yours to wear.”

He gulped, thinking about the way Katniss looked wearing his sweatpants and favorite hoodie, both several sizes too large for her. The hoodie could be large enough for her to wear as a dress, and sometimes at night he’d close his eyes and fantasize about her wearing just his hoodie, her smooth legs bare beneath it, her nipples lightly brushing against the fabric. He’d think about her like that until he moaned her name into his pillow, coming into a sock. She never looked more beautiful than she did wearing his clothes.

He could feel his face flushing, and he was grateful for the camouflage the bruises provided him. “I mean, if you insist,” he said, giving her one last, feeble out.

“I insist.” Her voice was low and even, the matter decided. “So…” She pointed toward his leg, her face flushing again. “What’s the best way to clean that?”

Peeta began to understand what was embarrassing her. In the eleven years they’d known each other they’d seen a fair amount of each other’s skin from days spent swimming, lounging around in the blistering heat, half-sleeping on top of sweat-drenched sheets on humid summer nights. It felt completely different, though, for him to drop his pants in the middle of his bathroom.

The tomato-red blush sprawled across her neck and cheeks and ears told Peeta a story so completely at odds with the vitriol Cato had thrown. And he didn’t know if it was hope or fury that was setting him alight, burning in his guts and coursing through his veins like acid.

Peeta swallowed nervously and tried to chuckle, but the sound came out strangled and weak. He ran a hand through his messy hair, making a bigger mess of it. “I— ah— can handle this part myself. I think I’ll have to take off my pants.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Peeta. I’ll take care of it.” She lifted her chin up, her eyes meeting his in a challenge. He wanted to laugh at her mixture of pride and determination, shock and innocence. “Drop them,” she said, turning around and crossing her arms, her back to him.

He laughed, a full-bodied, gut-shaking laugh, the first since Cato had leveled his world. “Katniss, I’ve got boxers on, you’re all good. It’s not like I go around commando… that is, unless my costume calls for tights,” he teased.

“Hardy har,” she grumbled, not laughing but turning back around anyway, keeping her eyes anchored on her feet instead of looking at Peeta.

The way she refused to look at him made him nervous. It made him think about how, a short time ago, he couldn’t look at her and why— because she was as radiant as the sun, and he was nothing more than an abject mutt. With shaky hands, he unzipped his fly and let the baggy pants pool around his ankles, kicking each pant leg off one at a time because he didn’t trust himself to bend over without passing out.

He put his hands on his hips, but that didn’t feel right, so he crossed them over his chest instead. And he stood there, waiting for what felt like an eternity, until Katniss said something. Did something. _Anything_.

Her eyes locked on the four-inch gash that had ripped the skin of his thigh when he fell to the ground and landed on a fragment of an old, rusted metal pipe once used to rack bicycles.

Blood had trickled down his leg, past his knee, but even though it stung like a bitch, at least it had stopped bleeding.

She took a ragged breath when she looked at it, sucking in air between her front teeth. “How did you get that?” Her eyes darted up to meet his, all bashfulness gone.

He shrugged and scratched at the back of his neck. “I— uh— guess it was when I fell. Some pipe sticking out of the cement got me on the way down.”

Her face blanched at his words, her eyebrows knitting in consternation. “You could get sick from that, you know,” she said, her voice laced with anger.

The tone she took annoyed him, made him feel as though he was being judged or babied, or both. “I know what tetanus is, Katniss,” he snapped, sinking back onto the edge of the tub, wincing as the wound stretched from his movement.

“Hey,” she said, her voice softening. She walked up and stood close to him, shaking his shoulder lightly until he looked up at her. “Knock that off. I’m not mad at _you_.”

He sighed and rubbed his knuckle in his uninjured eye, feeling worn down to a nub and thoroughly done with the world. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so tired, Katniss.”

“I know.” The way she said it made him think she really did know. She sounded beaten, too. He felt her hand move up along his jaw and into the hair above his temple, her fingertips scratching his scalp lightly. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, her hand freezing so that it cradled his head. “C’mon, let’s get this cleaned up so we can get you into bed,” she spoke in a half-whisper.

She ran a washcloth under the tap, the water so hot it steamed and made her hiss as it touched her skin. She walked back over to him, holding the washcloth along with scissors, tape, and gauze, and then sank to the ground in front of him, leaning one elbow on his uninjured leg to give her better purchase. Her skin felt so good on his, so impossibly good, that he began to worry he’d get a hard on with her face hovering a foot above his crotch.

Until she started to speak, that is.

“So what exactly happened today with Cato?” She continued to wipe down his leg, gently dabbing around the scab so she wouldn’t reopen the injury.

“Oh, the usual,” Peeta answered as noncommittally as he could, despite feeling sick. “He was being a dick, and this time I opened my big mouth.”

She frowned and hung the damp, blood-stained washcloth over the tub, reaching for the antiseptic and some gauze to disinfect the wound.

It didn’t look quite so awful without all the dried blood, but the edges of the cut were serrated and jagged. It looked as angry as Peeta felt thinking about what Cato had said about Katniss.

She exhaled heavily, looking thoughtful as she cleaned and then dressed his wound. Her hands grazed his flesh as she wound the tape around his leg, over and over so that the gauze wouldn’t move. Her featherlight touches made his skin break out into gooseflesh; he prayed she thought it was from the cold surface of the tub.

“I know what he said… and what you did for me,” she whispered, the words a confession echoing off the shower tiles.

The words landed in Peeta’s stomach, a massive bomb that detonated and obliterated everything inside of him. “What do you mean?” he asked, not daring to say more.

“You don’t have to lie,” she said. “I always know when you’re lying anyway.”

He looked down at her face and clutched the edges of the tub so that he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t lift her chin to make her eyes meet his. “Alright, then,” he said, choking the words out even though they were bitter to taste. “How did you find out?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “I know he’s been talking about me.” She picked up the first aid supplies and started to stand, but Peeta reached out and grabbed her wrist.

“It _does_ matter,” he told her, needing her to believe it, and, when she started to shake her head, he pressed on, “It matters to me, then.”

Her face grew pale, and when she finally met his gaze a fat tear coursed its way down her cheek. “It’s not real. I swear,” she told him.

“I know that,” he said without pausing. Katniss was free to do whatever she wanted, with whomever, and although it killed him that he wasn’t the one she wanted to do it with, he’d never think anything less than the world of her. She was pure-hearted and honest, and it didn’t matter what she did— that would never change for him. Never.

She stood up and walked over to the sink, placing the supplies carefully back into the medicine cabinet. When she shut the mirror, he could see her face again. It was still pale, and tears had begun to fall faster, more determinedly, down her face.

He stood up and limped over to her, standing directly behind her. He hesitated, considering what to do, and then wrapped his arms around her shoulders, drawing her back against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Hey,” he said, giving her a light shake because he didn’t know what else to do.

“I meant that none of it is real,” she told his reflection. She paused and watched him as he tried to absorb the meaning of her words. When she could see him struggling to parse out her meaning, she added. “It’s true that I went on a date with Gale.”

His heart began to thud concussively in his chest, and he could tell that she could feel it too because she brought her hands up to to his forearms and held onto him, her thumbs lightly stroking his skin.

“I went because he asked, but it wasn’t like that. We’re not like that… I don’t feel that way about him. And I didn’t—” her voice broke off, and her body sagged against Peeta’s. “I haven’t ever,” she clarified, sounding breathless and scared.

He closed his eyes, and he didn’t care if she could see his relief, the ragged emotion surfacing on his swollen and battered face. The mask slipped, vanishing with her last three words, and he couldn’t say where it went, just that he trusted her to see the entire truth at last.

When she spoke next, he felt like a superhero. He felt like he could fly, could leap from the tallest buildings and land on his feet, could bend space and time and catapult through galaxies. She made him feel invincible.

“It wouldn’t be right unless it was with you,” she told him.

He pressed his face into the crown of her head, and it didn’t matter to him anymore whether he was weak or strong; he began to cry in relief, each pent up emotion, every repressed fear and buried heartbreak bubbled to the surface. Her hair felt smooth under his lips, and he began to kiss her, to kiss each and every hair on her head because now, finally, he could.

“You love me,” he whispered, and it wasn’t a question.

But she answered him anyway, turning in his arms and pressing her lips to his, her tongue finding his and stroking gently, urgently, needfully. Her hands caressed the bruises of his face, each touch wiping away the pain.

“C’mon, Marv,” she whispered to his lips, pulling his shirt as the Mockingjay led them to bed.


End file.
